Sentinels keep Pats on rollercoaster

Posted 5/1/14

Tuesday was just one of those days for the Pilgrim girls’ lacrosse team.

Coming off a substantial layoff and playing a hungry Smithfield team, the Pats fell 10-4 at Bryant University. They never …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

E-mail
Password
Log in

Sentinels keep Pats on rollercoaster

Posted

Tuesday was just one of those days for the Pilgrim girls’ lacrosse team.

Coming off a substantial layoff and playing a hungry Smithfield team, the Pats fell 10-4 at Bryant University. They never quite got anything going on either end of the field, and the Sentinels were more than happy to make them pay.

“We went up and played at Bryant and [Smithfield] was raring to go,” said Pilgrim head coach Tom Flanders. “We had an off day. By the time we started to get our stuff together, it was a little bit too late at that point.”

Pilgrim dropped to 3-2 in Division III-South, while Smithfield has the same record in D-III-North. The game was the first one the Pats had played since a 13-8 win over North Providence on April 16. They had a game against Burrillville/North Smithfield rained out over vacation, and then had to wait patiently for Tuesday to arrive.

When it finally got underway, it went south right from the start.

“They jumped right out quick,” Flanders said. “They scored first. We were trying to play catch up for a while. We didn’t take care of the ball in the air and we didn’t win it on the ground.”

The loss was the third in four games for Pilgrim, which began the season 2-0 after a trip to the D-III title game last season. It initially lost a non-league game to Warwick Vets, then lost a tough 12-11 game to undefeated Chariho. It rebounded for the North Providence win before Smithfield sent it to the loss column again.

That said, the ups-and-downs weren’t overly unexpected for Pilgrim, which graduated a huge group of players from last year’s team and is still trying to find the right mix with this year’s group.

“We’re going through some growing pains as well,” Flanders said. “After last season we lost a lot of players. The kids are still trying to find their positions out there. I know that we’re going to have these setbacks here and there.”

One change is at the goaltender position, where sophomore Hannah Page – the starting goalie on the soccer team – has stepped into the role.

That position has been in flux since the graduation of Kayleen Murphy after last season.

“The goaltender position is one that now Hannah Page is going to assume full-time for me for a little bit,” Flanders said. “She’s kind of being a real team player with this, because she plays goal in soccer. I couldn’t be happier with her stepping up to do this.”

Offensively, Haley McCusker has led the way all season and she did again on Tuesday, finding the cage multiple times. But Flanders is still trying to find offensive options to step up around her. McCusker has 35 goals on the season, while the next highest goal-scoring Pilgrim players – prior to Tuesday – are Paula Cavanagh and Sophie DeLuca with five apiece.

“We did get our shots off,” Flanders said. “A lot of them were either right at the goalie or missed the net completely. I found myself reminding them that the goal was the orange thing with the net hanging off of it.”

Yet, at 3-2, the Pats are still right in the thick of the playoff chase. They have the benefit of playing in what looks like the weaker of the two D-III sub-divisions, as they’ve already beaten Westerly and Johnston and will play them both again. They’ll also get a chance for redemption against Chariho – the fourth team in their subdivision – on Friday when they host the Chargers at 5:15 p.m.

The other subdivision features 5-1 Burrillville/North Smithfield, 5-1 Mount St. Charles and 3-2 Smithfield.

Pilgrim has six games left in the regular season, and all of them will take place over the next 14 days. Prior to the Chariho game, they will be at 1-6 Scituate today at 3:30 p.m. The Spartans picked up their first win of the season 12-7 over Johnston on Tuesday.

“All of them have some reflection to do today,” Flanders said. “We go after Scituate tomorrow and hopefully we can rebound as a program.”

Comments

No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here